Blair Dravitski

And I've always come from the point of view that no matter where I've worked, and I've worked South Auckland to Eastside of Christchurch to where I am now,

I've never met a parent who doesn't want what's best for their child.

Sometimes the delivery model is different in each of those examples.

But what I've learned over the years is if you actually sit and listen, you can start unpacking, I guess, the root of where the issue, where the worry is coming from.

As I said, it's not always delivered in the best way, but I think sometimes if we sit back and just really process what's going on, it helps significantly in getting to the point where actually we both want the same thing, which is the best outcome for the child.

The teacher or the principal in my situation are the best point of contact.

And just taking the time to listen and do it in a respectful way so that we're in a position to, I guess, make adjustments and prioritise what we want to achieve.

Yeah, so from a staff point of view, speak up.

If you feel like things are being done to you, then speak up.

If the pace of change is not something that you're coping with, it's really important that you speak up before it gets to a point where you are thinking about leaving the profession.

It should never get to that place.

Oh absolutely and in my environment we've made changes to the way in which we have rolled out some of the changes because of staff feedback around that.

I call it leading up, so leading up is when teachers, you know most schools are hierarchically driven, teachers are confident enough to say hey look we just need to pause on this or I know we have to do it but can we extend the deadline or extend the timeline because it's important that your staff is the greatest resource you have and we have a

a teaching force that in certain parts of the country are very thin.

So we need to make sure that we're looking after those who are doing the job, a job that I haven't been in the classroom for for 13 years.

So I have the utmost respect for teachers and what they're doing.

It's my job to make sure that their life is as easy as it can be.

It's sometimes more challenging than it sounds.

But that's my job.

And so for parents, it's the same.